Something Else!!!!

One of northern Europe’s most important museums of contemporary art, the SMAK in Gand, Belgium, presents a fine selection of some seventy works from its collection at the MAN in Nuoro. The selection, chosen by Philippe Van Cauteren and Cristiana Collu, is anything but arbitrary: its intent is to document the moment of transition between a “before” and an “after” in the contemporary art world of the 1950s.

Something Else!!!! is in fact a metaphor for the breakthrough album of the American jazz musician, Ornette Coleman. It was in 1958 that Coleman and his quartet infringed on the conventions of the world of jazz by exploring new territory, ranging from improvisation to atonality.

A similar caesura, almost the effect of an exceptionally forceful short circuit, takes place in the SMAK collection when the legacy of the contemporary is brusquely superseded by new forms of expression and new protagonists.

It is indeed with the idea of perceiving this Something Else!!!! that of the two thousand works belonging to the SMAK, a selection has been made for the exhibition at the MAN in Nuoro.

Historically speaking, Something Else!!!! makes its appearance in the post WWII period, when novel themes, new forms of expression, and new players irrupt into the world of art and superimpose themselves, by their very discontinuity with the past, on the preceding “historic” period. It is precisely this moment of transition that the MAN exhibit intends to recount. It is an attempt to understand if, apart from the effect of a frequently violent breakaway, it is not possible to nevertheless detect the lines, like in Omette Coleman’s music, of a complex, stratified and sophisticated melody.

Something Else!!!! presents a confrontation, rather than an encounter, between historic works and others of recent, even very recent, acquisition. It brings to the forefront, for example, the dialogue between Jannis Kounellis and Luc Yuymans; between Pierre Alechinsky and Patrick Lebret; between Wilhelm Sasnal and Andy Warhol. At the same time Something else!!!! is also a moment of reflection on the theme of art-reality, where art is an expression of social phenomenon in which it is equally a participant. In addition, the exhibition is the opportunity to immerse oneself in the history of a museum and evaluate its acquisitions policy, an act of particular significance with respect to the evolution itself of the MAN. But above all, Something else!!!!, with its 70 works by 50 artists, is a feast of art and imagination.

Something Else!!!! presents, among others, works by Arman, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Patrick Lebret, Allen Jones, Jannis Kounellis, Ricardo Brey, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Lois e Franziska Weinberger, Maria Serebriakova, Johanna Billing, Jennifer Allora e Guillermo Calzadilla, Guillaume Bijl, Jan Fabre, Wilhelm Sasnal, Wim Delvoye, Thomas Schütte, Zoe Leonard, Edward Lipski, Jan Van Imschoot, Bruce Nauman, Walter Leblanc, Jean- Pierre Raynaud, Mekhitar Garabedian, Sven ’t Jolle, François Morellet, Panamarenko, Herman Van Ingelgem, Federico Fusi, Mike Kelley, Fabrice Hybert, Andy Warhol, Willem Oorebeek, Luc Tuymans, Pierre Alechinsky, Jan Vercruysse.

Works of the exhibition chosen by Philippe Van Cauteren and Cristiana Collu Promoted by MAN_Museo d'Arte Provincia di Nuoro, in collaboration with the SMAK in